It’s always a very difficult task to evaluate something whose quality is determined by the ability to make people laugh. Everyone just has a different taste of humor and I believe among all the means of entertainment – be it anime or something else – comedy is the genre whose scions are the most difficult to evaluate collectively as good or bad. Even a person with no interests in, say, action stuff can at least appreciate the aspect of something just being spectacular, but with comedy there is practically no middle ground – it’s a hit or miss. To be frank, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou was almost entirely a miss for me, though that doesn’t automatically make the show bad or mean that anyone won’t enjoy it. It just wasn’t for me, even if the first episode looked as promising as almost any anime, but the momentum didn’t last that long. Anyway, let’s dig a little deeper and find out why exactly it didn’t work that well.

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If Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou was a child, its parents would definitely be Nichijou and Gintama. The basic premise of the show is very simple – you just can’t be more simple than some people (in this case – high-schoolers) doing some random and occasionally funny stuff. Sounds very similar to Nichijou, and not only because of the name, doesn’t it? I have a suspicion that, as Nichijou manga started few years earlier, Yasunobu Yamauchi, the author of Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou manga, may have been more or less influenced by it. Anyway, the similarities stop short pretty quick as Nichijou is an anime with girls in the center, its tone is far less sinister and finally it has more typical slice of life moments and doesn’t rely too much on the humor. Speaking about the humor, that’s where the Gintama part comes in. After all, it’s not that strange as both shows share the same studio, director and some of the voice actors among other similarities. As I’m not one of the biggest Gintama fans (it’s just not a particularly funny show, though it certainly has some hilarious moments), it’s quite obvious why Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou proved a little too hard to stomach for me. Well, a healthy dose of toilet and underwear type of humor can be funny enough but there it looked a bit overdone, overused and more silly than funny. Moreover, the show felt overstretched more times than not since all the setting up of a joke took serious chunks of time and when the final moment of retribution would finally come, it just won’t pay off accordingly. It’s like hearing of an enormous and vast beach nearby and after arriving there it turns out to be just a sandbox, and not a particularly spectacular one. Of course, the anime had some very well made sketches (probably the best ones were those of the Literary Girl) but most of the time a poker face was very easy to retain for me. Also, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou strongly promoted the feeling of comradery, the bro-code, when a person would do a silliest thing in the world no matter what if it only would help his friend. As one of the overarcing themes of the show, this one was executed really well and even if in some instances pretty flat jokes were used, I still can and must appreciate what was achieved.

Sadly, characters aren’t the most interesting part of the show, either. At least the series itself is fully aware of that as at one point it even claims that you don’t have to learn the names of the characters – it’s not important. Well, that can be taken as a meta-joke but I’d prefer to become at least a bit attached to people whose daily lives are shown and of whom I’m supposed to laugh at and to be invested in. The three main guys are distinguishable probably only by their hair color and their voices. Maybe it was meant to have many self-insert characters, but either way it didn’t work that well. Speaking about the supporting characters, there’s a bunch of other pretty much faceless guys that barely can be described in one sentence. And that bunch is not small – there’s even a case of introducing some new people only so that they can be mistook for the main guys. It’s not a bad feature by itself as Baccano! did pretty well with an exceptionally huge cast, but for it to pay off you need those characters to be characters and use them, not just tell one or two jokes and return them to oblivion. Another serious drawback was the depiction of females. I understand it can be argued that as the show lets us see the world as those particular high-school boys see it and it’s just a matter of perception, but I must disagree. I fail to remember any female character in the show that wasn’t shown to be aggressive (in past or present), more or less dumb or just incompetent. Probably there were some, but it seems that those girls just didn’t have enough screen time to show their true characters. Yes, it definitely looked refreshing during some early episodes when you can relax from usual moe types and damsels in distress, but later on it just dragged the show down. Every girl that has more screen time than five minutes was shown as unstable, often prone to fighting and being, well, very unsympathetic. I agree that some characters of this sort could be ok, but if each and every girl is like this… I’m sorry, I’d better watch something else, with more variety.

Speaking about the artstyle, it wasn’t anything notorious. Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou tried to put all the weight on the comedic side of the show, so there were no, say, planet destroying screams like there were in Nichijou. Soft colors matched slice-of-life-ish atmosphere, and scenes near the river, that were meant to be a parody of romantic stuff, even looked beautiful. As far as character designs go, I’m not so positive. Well, they were exceptional enough so that you can easily distinguish the show from probably any other anime. Yet, as large a cast as it had, Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou just didn’t manage to make the characters stand out in their own world. Many a time I kept wondering if a glimpsed person has been there for the whole time or just showed up and will never be seen again. Still, the problem was way deeper with girl characters. Almost every guy seemed to have countless sisters portrayed without showing their eyes and, as I already mentioned, had almost exact personalities. That also applied to many other females of the show. The constant portraying of people without eyes probably is a bit too much. Yes, they look very non-human (which clearly female characters are supposed to be like), but what of it if it carries no emotional weight? One or two eyeless characters should have been more than enough, not almost all of them.

As music for Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou was created by Audio Highs, the same person to work with Gintama, we can add another common point between the two of them. Even if there was hardly any song that I would listen constantly outside of the show (OP and ED included), the soundtrack did what it should have. The same laid back aura of Gintama was welcome here as well, so I think soundtrack was probably one of the stronger parts of the series. By the way, J. Pachelbel’s famous Canon in D was used and was used effectively enough.

After all, everything I can say about Danshi Koukousei no Nichijou is that you should try it yourself to see if it’s for you. Practically, it’s Gintama in high school without its serious arcs and flamboyant setting. The characters were harder to become acquainted with than first episodes of Shirobako, but the development part didn’t even start. The show has its own more sinister than usual slice of life comedy anime niche and looks to be quite respected within the community, but I don’t harbor very warm feelings towards it. Well, it just proves that barely any comedy can be for everyone.

I believe, this anime

Could’ve been worse

Even if this show isn’t for me, it can easily be for you. Yes, it’s not perfect but it has its own charm that can definitely appeal for many people.